


Moonbeams

by theOther_Will_Grayson



Series: The Fifth Marauder [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Friendship, Good Severus Snape, Marauders, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 16:33:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14109492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theOther_Will_Grayson/pseuds/theOther_Will_Grayson
Summary: Severus has finally done it. He's created the cure for Lycanthropy. He hopes. Now all that's left to do is test it out. On the full moon. With only a stag, a dog, and a rat to protect him. No matter what, it's going to be a long night. A look at what it would have been like if Severus had been friends with the Marauders pt 2. No slash. "Graphic descriptions of violence" = Remus's transformation -- I just thought I'd be safe. Originally posted on FanFiction.net





	Moonbeams

**Author's Note:**

> This is part of a 'verse. You don't have to read I Have Not Failed first, but it might help!

“I still don’t like this.”

“I know. I’m aware.”

“You could still go back”

“I could.”

James shook his head, said, “You’re insufferable, you know that?” and regarded his companion, his jaw twitching with Gryffindor pride. Occasionally he glanced down to assure his footing as they trekked across the Hogwarts grounds. “It’s not safe.”

Severus managed to resist the urge to roll his eyes and settled for a long-suffering glance towards the full moon, which winked from above and seemed to smirk at his distress. “I’m perfectly aware of the danger involved, James.”

“And you’re still here?” James’s overprotective nature was starting to grate on his nerves.

“So are you.” He knew it was different, of course — he wasn’t an Animagus. But this was the best way to end the argument for good. This way, he turned James’s coddling into hypocrisy. Slytherin manipulation.

Inclusion had been his theme for the past few weeks since they formed this plan at Severus’s vehement insistence. Peter didn’t say much about the matter, but he kept glancing back every few steps, his eyes narrowed, his brows furrowed, words on the tip of his tongue. Sirius welcomed him with the usual enthusiastic side-armed hug and comment about the state of his hair, accompanied by a ruffle to said hair, but Severus knew he would be watching him just as closely. And Remus…

Remus was tight-jawed, glaring at Severus whenever he came into view. To the untrained eye, Remus seemed to resent his presence. Severus knew better. The man used others’ bodies as deflectors so he could shoot curses at himself. If looks could kill, Severus was a mirror for Remus’s suicide.

“The one time we could use that Slytherin sense of self-preservation…” James nudged him, smirking slightly, but it made Severus roll his eyes for real this time, even if it was accompanied by a wry smile. 

Sirius paused in front of thim, halting their five-man party. “Will you two shut it? We’re here.”

Yes, Severus realized with some trepidation, they were. The Marauders stood about thirty metres from the base of the Whomping Willow, just feet outside her notice and mere inches outside her reach. She loomed over them, silhouetted against the brightness of the swollen moonlight, her only movement gentle quivering in the night breeze. Severus shivered.

“Last chance to turn back,” James leaned over and whispered to him. 

Severus met his eyes with a determined glare, hand unconsciously moving to grip the vial of potion in his robe pocket. “Never.”

Remus, who was also walking ahead of them, gave him a tight smile. Severus quirked an eyebrow in response. “So how does this work?

Peter stepped forward, a rare look of charismatic mischief adorning his features. “Just watch,” he said, giving Severus a confident wink. Then, without warning, he dropped and disappeared, replaced by a small brown rat. Wormtail gave him a wide, sharp-toothed grin, tiny beady eyes gleaming impishly before he scurried off. He vanished into the unkempt lawn, which tickled Severus’s ankles and dwarfed the small rat. If he concentrated enough, Severus could make out the blades of grass bending this way and that as he forged a tiny path in the weeds. 

The Willow groaned suspiciously, sensing a human presence under the wiry umbrella of her branches, but unable to find anything but an innocent rat darting along the exposed roots at her base, and then up her trunk.

Suddenly, she seemed to know. She began to sway restlessly, feeling the rat approaching something, humming as if in indignation. Severus took an unconscious step back, but Remus’s hand on the small of his back steadied him.

From his distance, Severus could make out Wormtail’s form scurrying along the bark of the Willow’s trunk, a tiny round shadow in the pools of light oozing from the full moon.

“Get ready,” James murmured, his eyes determined, focused. Severus cast his eyes about and saw his companions poised as if at the starting line of a race, arms and legs cocked like a Muggle photograph of a runner mid-stride. As Severus sunk into a similar position, feeling slightly ridiculous, Sirius turned to him and waggled his eyebrows, a challenge in his smirk. Severus shrugged and turned forward to watch Wormtail press a knot on the Willow’s trunk.

With a frustrated groan, the Willow gave one last blind swipe before she creaked to a halt. Peter fell to the grass as a human again and waved urgently. “Come on!”

“Go, go, go!” James commanded, and Severus felt more like a Marauder than he ever had, sprinting through the open air towards certain danger, high on risk and madness. Beside him, Sirius gained on his flank, grinning, his face flushed with exertion, the wind blowing his hair back as they barreled towards the tree. 

He was shoved urgently into a tunnel behind Sirius, engulfed very suddenly in darkness and claustrophobia. Muttered curses echoed through the tunnel as they crouch-walked through the low-hung tunnel. “Lumos,” someone whispered, and blue light blinded him for a moment, before he caught sight of the wide expanse of blackness that lumos couldn’t penetrate and his breath left him too. 

Roots hung from the ceiling like earthy chandeliers, and the blue glow of lumos made it feel like the full moon was simpering down at them even as they ducked underground. 

“Come on,” Remus urged him forward. They squeezed through the narrow path, bumping and swearing and shoving. Claustrophobia tugged at the back of Severus’s throat, squeezing until he couldn’t draw a full breath. He squirmed in the dirt and gritted his teeth, trying not to let his discomfort show. Surrounding himself with Gryffindors on a daily basis did little beyond make him feel self-conscious about his own cowardice. 

When he finally reached the end of the tunnel, he gulped sweet, cold oxygen, flushing out the hot, damp, thick, sticky, humid air of the tunnel. Breathed in, out. Closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them to take in his surroundings. He saw a room that looked like a cross between a sitting room and an attic, with boarded up windows and dust teasing the inside of his nose. The Shrieking Shack.

“Little tight for ya, Doc?” Sirius grinned, but the hand on his shoulder was the real question. You good, Sev?

“Kiss my arse,” he grumbled. I’m fine. Just give me a moment.

Remus pushed past him, the last to join, but the first to say, “Shall we?” through gritted teeth, his eyes dark, his body tense. Immediately, the room sobered, any mirth sucked out as the Marauders took out their wands and began muttering spells of ward and protection. By the time it was time, the moon approaching its peak, the whole room buzzed with their charms.

Remus locked eyes with Severus, who reached into his robe pocket and pulled out the vial filled with what appeared to be molten silver, a metallic blue liquid, and handed it to Remus. “The final dose,” he said.

“Cheers,” the werewolf muttered shakily. The potion glinted in the moonlight that fought its way through the cracked, covered windows as it slid like slime into his mouth. “Ugh,” Remus grimaced, handing back the vial. “May want to work on the flavor, Doc.”

“Noted.” Severus slipped the vial back into his pocket. “How do you feel?”

Remus frowned, internally prodding at his current state. The other Marauders looked on tensely as they waited for his response. Fists clenched, a look of subdued horror descending on his face, Remus breathed, “The Wolf doesn’t like it.” He clutched at his gut, grabbing for something that they couldn’t see. “He really doesn’t like it.”

Severus’s stomach dropped as the weight of what was happening worked its way through his brain. “Padfoot,” Remus whispered, reaching blindly for Sirius’s hand, his gaze fixed on some spot on the floor, eyes wide, voice shaking. “It’s happening.”

“There’s time,” James insisted, but the assurance was shaky at best. “We left time. The moon-”

Suddenly, Remus let out a cry and dropped to his knees, his body twitching, shivering, jerking. James rushed to his side, and Sirius knelt next to him, still clutching his violently trembling hand until Remus yanked it away with a shout of anguish.

Severus stood frozen, his eyes fixed on Remus’s prostrate form. “It didn’t work,” he whispered, his throat clenching.

The declaration seemed to remind the Marauders of his presence. James’s head snapped up, his eyes scanning for only a split second before he commanded, “Wormtail, get him out of here!”

“No, no, no,” Severus protested weakly. “I have to watch have to-” He swallowed. “I didn’t...something-”

“Oh for the love of-” Jame’s started, but he was cut off by an anguished scream ripping from Remus’s throat, his eyes screwed shut, his head thrown back. “Doc-”

But Severus was transfixed, watching the tufts of matted gray fur beginning to sprout from Remus’s hands and around the sweat droplets on his forehead that glistened in the dim light.

“Doc, go!” James bellowed, lunging toward Severus.

Peter tugged on his hand. “Come on, Sev.”

“No,” he insisted, throwing them both off. “I’ll be fine. I need to see-”

Then, Sirius backed away

Remus’s back arched and elongated with a series of nauseating pops, pulling a yell from between his tight teeth. His arms twisted, shook. Thick ripples and sickening cracks trailed along his entire body, bone after bone after bone twisting, muscles stretching and bubbling beneath his skin. 

Padfoot and Prongs dropped into their animagus forms with a swish. The great Stag stepped in front of Severus, just as a deafening tearing sound ripped through the Shack and the Werewolf emerged from Remus’s robes, which now lay in tatters on the rotting hardwood. Severus scooped up Wormtail, and cradled him in his hands. 

Padfoot stepped forward to meet the tall, lanky figure that Remus had become. Moony. Twisted nails protruded from its half-paw hands, its elbows hanging at the wrong angle. Its spine and neck were hunched like a wizened dog, its shoulder blades protruding like wings. Its short snout searched the air, its half stubby tail jerking behind its gnarled legs, round, doglike ears twitching and testing. And those eyes…

The Wolf let out a howl, its long snout thrown high in the air, its body taut and poised. Wormtail’s nipped at Severus’s palm, and he hissed in pain, but ignored the insistence in the Rat’s eyes. 

The Wolf heard the noise, just that one hiss, and its head snapped in Severus’s direction. He took a step back with the weight of the Wolf’s gaze, but refused to step toward the exit. Wormtail advanced to the very edge of Severus’s fingertips, baring his incisors in a useless display of tiny protectiveness and glared with all the heat the small Rat could manage.

The Wolf growled, foam beading and dripping from its teeth. Its jaw snapped, its forepaws hovering just above the floor as it took a loping step forward. Padfoot growled a warning right back, taking two steps for its one. The half-beasts’ eyes locked for a moment before the Wolf barked in indignation and swiped its gnarled claws.

Prongs leapt forward and parried with his antlers, caging the Wolf and throwing him to the ground. With a yelp, it fell and tumbled away. For a moment, the tension of the fight hung in the air before they realized it was not getting up, but curling in on itself. Wasn’t snarling, but whimpering. It lifted its head, eyes glazed and looking around disorientedly, blinked and seemed to shake something off, and then — shockingly — realize where it was.

“Remus,” Severus breathed, and Moony’s eyes flicked around to search his surroundings. Wormtail shifted in Severus’s hand, and he knelt to let the rat animagus scrabble onto the floor. The Stag and the great black Dog exchanged a look, cautious wonder in their eyes. But Severus knew what was happening. He was sure. At least, that’s what he told himself as he stepped past Prongs and towards the Wolf.

The Werewolf — Remus, now. Moony — hadn’t quite noticed him. It — he — pushed up from the floorboards and sat back on his haunches to examine his hands, paws, the things in between the two. He turned his limbs this way and that before his eyes, a distinctly human motion juxtaposed by his animalistic sitting position. Severus watched Moony’s eyes as they roamed over fur, twig-like limbs, translucent skin, and saw the horror descend in them.

“Remus,” he said again, stepping closer.

Moony jumped in surprise — not at the noise, but at his own name. At Severus’s flank, Padfoot growled a warning. “It’s alright, Sirius,” he murmured, holding up his hand. “Remus won’t hurt me, will you Remus?”

The Wolf whined and shook his head, backing away. “It’s okay, Moony,” Severus said, advancing for every step of the Wolf’s retreat. “Don’t you see? It’s alright. You recognize me. You’re responding. I didn’t cure you, but I did the next best thing.”

He could feel three pairs of animal eyes on is back, tense in their cautious, ready gaze, but all he cared about were the startlingly human eyes in front of him, filled with fear and denial. He ignored the warning in them, the plea for him to back off, to run. Instead, he reached out a hand. Moony flinched and eyed the outstretched fingers, shook his head. Severus caught the noise of restless hooves shifting behind him, but pushed forward, begged Remus to trust him. Finally, the Wolf froze, watched him, then nudged forward, his snout hesitating for a moment before it just barely met Severus’s fingers. He smiled a the touch, the feel of the wet nose against his skin.

“You’re in there, aren’t you?” he said. “It’s alright.”

And for the first time in so, so, long, Remus looked at him with a spark of hope. Severus grinned and brought his hand forward to brush over his skull, his ears, the coarse fur on the back of his neck.

Sirius padded over and unceremoniously attacked the space under Remus’s jaw with nuzzles and licks. With an exaggerated sigh, James tucked his delicate legs underneath himself and laid serenely next to the Wolf, his head drooping with exhausted relief. Wormtail scurried over as well, and, feeling a bit mischievous, Severus took him in his palm and placed him atop Remus’s head. Moony immediately shook Peter onto the ground. The Rat tumbled around for a moment before hopping to his feet and glaring indignantly up at Severus.

Moony let out a huff, a light in his eyes that twinkled of amusement. Prongs fixed them with a look of awe, and Severus realized that the Wolf had probably never laughed before.

The night wound down eventually. Padfoot and Moony, after messing around like puppies (Remus of course having the advantage of opposable thumbs, though clawed, and the ability to stand on two legs), collapsed on the floor, panting heavily, their fur hot and damp with sweat. Peter took to scurrying about on Remus’s ridged body like it was a particularly entertaining obstacle course, the obstacle being Remus’s annoyed paw. James watched the entire thing with the amused approval he seemed to sport more and more these days.

Severus, who had been watching from his seat against the wall as well, scooted closer to Remus, who eyed him with the gentle caution that had yet to resolve. Severus ignored him in favor of pressing his body against Remus’s torso and pillowing his head with his arms on the Wolf’s protruding spine. Peter apparently decided he was also a viable obstacle as he raced up and over his robes and back onto Remus’s ribcage. Here he paused, contemplated, then climbed back onto Severus’s shoulder and into the crook of his neck where he settled, warm and small. Sirius lay with his black nose millimeters from Moony’s, their breaths mingling as they slowed. Severus stretched his legs and settled them across Padfoot’s warm body. The Dog rolled his large black eyes, but allowed it. Prongs settled in as well, resting his head on the curve of Severus’s hip, his antlers stretching towards the ceiling.

With this final puzzle piece in what was quickly becoming a cuddle puddle, an air of peace fell over the Shrieking Shack. Remus blinked up at Severus, warm light in his eyes that said he felt it too.

“I’m not going to stop, you know,” Severus whispered, scratching gently at the fur beneath his fingers. “This is a temporary fix, something to tide us over until I can find the real cure. I’m going to make this potion obsolete.”

Moony seemed to smile at him before shifting his head again and letting his eyes slide closed. A strong sense of satisfaction washed over Severus as he gazed upon the peaceful form below him. It seemed human, so human, and even the canine parts felt more dog-like than horrific. Moony’s ribcage expanded with each breath, and with one last sigh, the breaths evened, slowed, grew.

“He’s asleep.” James’s voice startled him. He’d switched back to human form and was standing above Severus with a gentle smile, his hands in his pockets. “That doesn’t happen often.” There was nothing but sincerity and weight in his voice as he roped in Severus’s gaze. He took a seat and leaned on Severus’s body, telling him, “You done good, Doc.”

And there, in the solitude and solidarity of the Shrieking Shack, the warmth of one another’s bodies fighting of the night’s gentle chill, Severus thought that the small beams of moonlight cascading through the cracked, covered windows were absolutely beautiful.


End file.
